


Somewhere in a Place With Many Flowers

by goaliemagic



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, That is all, but not in the 'kaidan has a magic dick' kind of way, like you really can't fix PTSD with dick so... do not expect that to happen here, more warnings may be added later, this is just sadness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-07 11:01:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10358976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goaliemagic/pseuds/goaliemagic
Summary: Shepard in action is a sight to behold. He's ruthless. Quick. Razorblade sharp.But when he's alone, when the diplomats and the generals and the councilors are gone, when everyone else has retreated to their rooms to try to heal, or rest, or pray... he's like a puppet with the strings cut. Like everything that's ever kept him going has been stripped away.So yeah, Kaidan saw this coming.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've written Shepard with pretty severe PTSD (just like in canon), based off of my own PTSD. However, I also have a myriad of other brain problems, so distinguishing PTSD symptoms from, say, Schizophrenia symptoms is pretty difficult. So I didn't try. Basically, what I have, Shep has. I'll leave it at that.
> 
> [title is taken from a poem of the same name, written by me. you can find that poem if you dig through my writing blog at godpoem.tumblr.com]
> 
> I don't have a beta-reader, so any mistakes are mine alone.

“You should get some shut-eye,” said Garrus. “I’ll make sure Joker doesn’t try to pull the Normandy into any _truly_ suicidal situations.” He moved to walk out of the war room, but Shepard reached out grab his shoulder.

“Garrus.”

Garrus paused and turned to look at him. It was almost painful—the sunken eyes, the pinched scarring. “Yes, Commander?”

“I need to speak with you.” Shepard’s grip tightened for a moment, and then relaxed. “In private.”

 _This is fine_ , Garrus thought. _Everything is normal and Shepard is totally fine._

 

***

 

The Captain’s Cabin was messy, and smelled like stale whiskey. A shoal of some small Earth fish fluttered in the tank, which was, surprisingly, the only clean thing in the room.

Shepard sat on his bare bed—everything but the sheets had been flung onto the floor. He held his head in hands and let out a short, heavy sigh. “So,” he said, “I killed Mordin.”

Garrus leaned against the far wall and studied him, his clenched jaw, his slightly shaking fingers. “It wasn’t your fault, Shepard. You have to know that.”

“Yes. _No_ —you don’t understand.” Shepard looked up, finally meeting Garrus’ eyes. “I...” He drew in a shaky breath. “The Dalatrass offered me a deal. Before we left for Tuchanka. She promised me her fleet and her best scientists if I stopped the cure from being released.”

“But it _was_ released. Those spores—”

“That wasn’t a cure.” Shepard looked back at the floor. “See, I was hoping Mordin just… wouldn’t synthesize it fast enough. You know? Who could be blamed for that? But when I got to the Shroud, he’d already finished it. He was about to head up. There was. A sabotage. The Salarians had messed with the temperature controls or _something_ , when they first released the genophage, so that a cure _couldn’t_ be released that way; it would kill the cure and just release the genophage again. No effect. And it’d look the same. Mordin figured that out, obviously. He wanted to fix it. So I told— _fuck_ —I told Mordin that he wasn’t going up. And he said it was his duty, that he had to set things right.”

Garrus was starting to see the pieces fall into place, and he really didn’t like what he was hearing.

“I said if he tried to get to the elevator, I’d shoot him. And he, he gave me this  _look_. Like he knew. And he said that he was going to do what he had to. And that he understood that I was gonna do what I had to, as well. And then. I shot him.”

“Goddamn it,” breathed Garrus. “Shepard, goddamn it, what were you _thinking?_ ”

Shepard winced, but set his jaw. “I was _thinking_ that we need that Salarian fleet. At all cost.”

“He was your friend!” Garrus shouted. “Fuck’s sake, Shepard, where does it end! Would you kill me, too? Would you kill Liara?”

“Yes!” screamed Shepard, and then his anger fell away, and he slumped again. “I would. I’d kill myself, too. I’ll do whatever I have to, to win this thing. And that, that scares me, Garrus.” There was a hitch on the last few words. Garrus blinked and started forward in shock—the Commander was crying.

Garrus picked his way through the debris of old uniforms and trash and sat heavily on the bed next to Shepard. “You know, sir, that kind of scares me too.”

They sat there in silence for a few moments, until Garrus couldn’t take it anymore, and left.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a quick flashback to the start of me3 bc im writing this while playing it and i havent gotten past tuchanka for a few months. anyway. shepard is a mess. very much a mess.
> 
> also, i know he's... more functional in the game but? i dont really agree with just how functional they made him. so heads up this shep is like 3 seconds away from a mental breakdown at any given moment.

After Mars, Shepard hadn’t had time to clean up, or rest, or check on Kaidan in Huerta Memorial—he’d jogged into the Council chambers with his hair still slicked in soot and sweat. Liara had carried him through it, really; Shepard had tried to concentrate on the meeting, on the politics, on the Dalatrass leaning in minutely to study the Prothean blueprints. Instead, he found himself staring at the red under his fingernails—Martian dust, or Kaidan’s blood?—and at the fact that there’d barely been a pulse, when he’d checked Kaidan’s throat in the medbay.

But, _oh yeah,_ looming Reaper threat. _Oh yeah_ , Earth. Fuck. _Earth_.

Liara grabbed his arm, shaking Shepard out of his head. “We’re done here,” she said, jaw set in barely-concealed seething rage. Shepard followed her out of the Council chambers, and then almost ran into her back when she stopped outside the door.

“Commander?” She snapped, and then visibly struggled to drag a veneer of patience across her face. “What happened in there?”

Shepard didn’t really have an answer. He gave a one-shouldered shrug and breathed out very deeply.

“No, you can’t just—fuck, Shepard, this is billions of lives, here! We all know that without Asari and Turian help, there’s no winning this fight, and that—that was our chance to convince them! That was it, Shepard! And it’s over, it’s gone now.”

Shepard wanted to shout _like I don’t know already that!_ but he couldn’t muster any anger for Liara. He shut his eyes and leaned back against the cool metal of the doorframe. Across the hall, a Turian C-Sec officer watched him and clicked his mandibles.

“It’s Kaidan, isn’t it?” said Liara, and then answered her own question. “Of course it’s Kaidan. Listen, he’ll. He’ll be fine. He’ll pull through. He’s like one of your cockroaches back on Earth.”

Liara winced as soon as the words were out of her mouth, and then sighed and scrubbed a hand over her eyes.

“I thought _I_ was the cockroach,” said Shepard, in a vague attempt to lighten the mood.

“I hope so,” said Liara, somewhat cryptically, and then patted his arm. Shepard flinched at the contact, while Liara tactfully pretended not to see. “Udina needs to talk to you,” she reminded him. “I’m going to go check on Kaidan, I’ll… I’ll see you back aboard the Normandy.”

“Okay,” said Shepard.

“Bay D24,” said Liara, a little louder.

“Okay,” said Shepard again.

Liara gritted her teeth and stalked down the hall, and Shepard closed his eyes again. _Fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for very slightly bending the actual sequence of events but who cares right?
> 
> also re:updates, i write tiny chapters always bc i suck, but hopefully i'll be posting them every few days? and if/when i finish this, i'll condense the chapters and fix everything so its easier to read.
> 
> thank you to everyone who left kudos and commented by the way!! 100% was not going to continue this tbh! but you guys r great so im trying!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> content warning for some... gore?

_You couldn’t see the stars through the dust storm sky but along the canyon, campfires blazed and sent up sparks that illuminated the whole valley. Shepard was on the precipice, looking down, and then he was in the canyon itself, running his hands over the smooth limestone wall. He walked for a long while, watched the insects in the air and the green plants which grew along the narrow river. The campfires continued far past the bend in the rock, and stretched behind him many miles as well._

_There was laughter, and familiar voices, and the smell of something base and alcoholic. Someone ran up to him—Mordin, judging by the gangly silhouette and reedy voice._

_“Shepard! We waited! You came!”_

_Shepard smiled._

_“Kvass—here,” said Mordin, pressing a plastic brown bottle into Shepard’s hands. “Krogan are drinking ryncol, but Garrus got Earth drinks for you. He said if you try the ryncol again he cut you off.”_

_Shepard laughed and unscrewed the kvass, took a sip. It was—it didn’t have any flavor, but for some reason that seemed right. He opened his mouth to thank Mordin, but instead what came out was “You’re not going up.”_

_Mordin’s face twisted. “Can’t stop me, Shepard.”_

_The campfires began to grow and roar. Dust swirled around them. The soft canyon walls turned into smooth metal. In front of them, the Shroud grew up toward the sky._

_“My cure, my work, someone else might have gotten it wrong,” spat Mordin. A drop of green blood tumbled from his mouth._

_Shepard’s arm moved without him. It reached into his holster and pulled out his old Katana shotgun. It held up the gun to the light. It aimed at Mordin’s chest._

_“I’m going up,” insisted Mordin. “Stop me if you must.” He turned toward the Shroud and started running._

_Shepard’s hand tensed, and pulled the trigger. A body exploded into hundreds of wet pieces._

_“Babe?” called a horribly familiar voice. A cough. Shepard scrambled toward Kaidan._

_The blood was red now, and Kaidan had a lot of holes in his chest. He was sick, pale and bruised, with a cannula snaking up his nose. He coughed again. “What did you do?” rasped Kaidan. “Why did you shoot me?”_

_Shepard tried to say that he didn’t mean to, that he didn’t want to, that he was sorry, but nothing came out._

_“I trusted you,” said Kaidan. He looked wrecked. There was blood in his mouth. “Why did you do this to me?”_

_There was a knock on the hospital door. Kaidan didn’t seem to hear to it._

_“Shepard?” said a voice. “Shepard, wake up. Wake up!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i started playing dishonored 2 and kinda forgot about mass effect for a bit. and then i remembered! and here we are. 
> 
> i actually wrote this while finishing up playing Tuchanka, so uh. it probably needs editing. which i will do later. i feel like im on a roll, so i dont want to interrupt that.
> 
> this playthrough i actually had enough paragon to convince him to not go up, but i decided to emotionally devastate myself into writing this instead!
> 
> a note:  
> kvass is a russian drink, which is very barely alcoholic. my shepard is russian, hence the drink. also, he likes hockey and that WILL come up later, consider it a threat.

**Author's Note:**

> this first chapter is kind of a placeholder and an intro both; hopefully i'll be uploading more soon. but to clear up any questions in the meantime--this starts right after the curing of the genophage on tuchanka, which means kaidan is, off doing specter things I guess. so while their relationship is a big part of the fic, it doesn't come into play for another little while yet.
> 
> and yes, im trying to stick to canon as much as possible, though i'm adding on new things and writing my own dialogue, for the most part.


End file.
